It is harder to cover even basic costs from budget, finance minister

Revenues of 12.5 billion lei were collected into the national public budget over January-July, by 1.8 billion lei (12.5%) more than projected. The spending was 15.3 billion lei, by 3.5 billion lei less than planned, Minister of Finance Mariana Durlesteanu said at the Government’s meeting. The budget deficit was 2.5 billion lei, Info-Prim Neo reports. The structure of the deficit was as follows: the state budget – 1.8 billion lei, the local budgets – 28 million lei, the state social insurance budget – 478 million lei and the obligatory health insurance funds – 183 million lei. The deficit was financed from the balances in the accounts of different types of budgets recorded at the start of this year, which have been practically used up according to the minister, and by issuing additional state securities that were placed on the market. Incomes of 7.2 billion lei were accumulated in the state budget during seven months. This is 84% of the projections for this period. The other 1.3 billion lei could not be collected due to the lower imports and lower volumes of taxes and duties levied inside the country. A sum of 9.1 million lei was spent from the state budget. This is 78.5% of the plan. As there was no money, the treasury could not release over 2.4 billion lei to fulfill payment orders presented by different budget-funded institutions. The minister said that during January-July 1.7 billion lei was used to pay salaries, usually by the tenth date of every month, 2.1 billion lei was transferred to local budgets, 585 million lei - to the state social insurance budget, while 666.8 million lei – to the obligatory health insurance funds. But the payments to the energy complex for July have not been made yet. The spending included the payment of pensions to military men (136 million lei) and student awards (123.5 million lei) and refunding of money to depositors of Banca de Economii (46 million lei). 96 million lei was transferred to the road fund, while 231 million lei – to the agriculture subsidization fund. The capital investments from the budget totaled 53.7 million lei. A sum of US$43.8 million or 490 million lei was used to service foreign debts. There are no external debt arrears. On July 30, 100 million lei or about US$9 million went to repay the debt to Russia for the loans taken out during 1992-1994, which was rescheduled through the Paris Club. The internal debt was also serviced duly. 416.5 million lei was allotted from the budget for the purpose, Mariana Durlesteanu said. After the information was presented, Prime Minister Zinaida Grecianyi ordered that budget resources should be allocated only for covering the basic costs. The minister of finance said that it is now harder to cover even such expenses.